People Should Marry Earlier

September 27, 2011

And they have no idea.

I was reading some of the blogs featured on the WordPress* main page today. Among the comments on one, I found this:

. . . I’ve been doing online dating off and on since college! It worked better for me when I was younger—possibly because that was before most people have really been burned and they were more optimistic and open.

It doesn’t seem to occur to her that dating always “works better” for younger women, and works less and less well as a woman ages. (She’s thirty.) I’m told that a woman’s fertility starts to decline around age 27, and that at 35 it’s already down to half what it was at 25 (and half of that at 40). Whether those are the precise numbers or not, a woman’s fertility certainly declines over time, and with it (think of it in evolutionary terms if you like) her attractiveness to men.

But that’s kind of my point: Inexorably, relentlessly, we get a year older every year, and we can never go back and unmake the decisions we made when our whole life was ahead of us. So it’s extremely important that we all grow up and start a family in a timely manner, if possible. (I realize that some minority of people are not called to marriage or having children, but the rest of us had better get on it. If you feel any desire ever to have children, or any desire to have sex, assume that you’re called to marriage.)

Again, I don’t mean to pick on any one person; our whole culture has a problem—adolescence is prolonged into our twenties, or even later, and people get married late, if at all. I understand that this was all supposed to be for women’s good—“liberate” them from benighted patriarchal obsessions with their “virtue” or “honor” so that they can have sex with whomever they feel like, just like men, and “liberate” them from early marriage and child rearing so that they can have fulfilling careers—but feminism has failed women. As the old saying goes, Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free? Liberals can mock all they want, but the principle is, in fact, true: Men today can get all the milk they want for free—often the question is not whether a girl will sleep with a guy before marriage or not, but whether she will do so on the first date or the second—and as a result, many men are profoundly uninterested in marriage. As a result, many women don’t get married and start trying to conceive until it’s too late, to their unending regret. As many women can tell you (this one, for example, or this one), feminism hasn’t made them happy. Many women are lonely and unfulfilled, wishing for the marriage and children that may never come.

Of course, as Christianity could have told them, a life of sin doesn’t ultimately lead to fulfillment or joy for men, either. As the commenter continues,

What I see now is a lot of guys that are either desperate to get married and have kids, or their profiles are so hateful towards women that it seems they just want to vent rather than actually date!

Women should convert to Christianity and stop sleeping around. They’re actively working against their own interests and squandering a valuable, but very quickly depreciating, opportunity.

If all women refused to fornicate (and if the Supreme Court allowed us to outlaw pornography, by the way), men would suddenly be much, much more interested in marriage. No, seriously, you have no idea how eager even selfish and short-sighted men would be to shape up and become responsible family men, if only the natural incentives God gave us were allowed to work properly.

Barring widespread cultural change, however, you can still make all the difference in the world to the direction of your own individual life. As Miss Bohrer says, a woman will be treated more or less as well as she demands to be treated.

If you’re willing to slouch into a relationship and sleep with a guy before he’s made the one promise that’s really irrevocable—marriage—then don’t be surprised if he doesn’t respect you or marriage, slouches his way selfishly through whatever relationship you have, and eventually either breaks up with you (regardless of whether he has formally married you by that point or not) or just coasts on in a lackluster relationship that doesn’t make you happy.

If, on the other hand, you refuse to compromise morally, and won’t settle for a man who selfishly asks you to, you’ll have cleared room in your life for a responsible, God-fearing man who respects you as a person and loves you for who you are. There may be fewer of them around, but they make much better husbands and fathers.

Everyone should also read The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism. Ignore the pugnacious (pignacious?) cover and title, and the occasional poor spelling inside (believe me, it bothered me too); it’s a serious book with a lot of useful information, some of which the world really doesn’t want you to know. I recommended it to a liberal friend and she actually read it, and said it was good, which is a pretty strong recommendation.

Update (October 20th, 2011): I also recommend the following related writings:

* Further note for anyone who hasn’t lost interest and stopped reading yet: WordPress automatically “corrects” my capitalization every time I use the word “WordPress” anywhere on my blog: It automatically adds the anomalous capital “P” in the middle of the word. I guess it’s part of their “branding”; I guess it’s pretty important to them. It is possible to work around that, by manually entering the HTML code for the lowercase-“p” character, and I used to do that, but I give up. It’s just not worth the trouble; let them have their branding, it’s more important to them than it is to me.

36 Responses to “People Should Marry Earlier”

Dear Mr. Conservative, thanks for quoting me in your blog! You don’t list a name, so that will have to suffice for now.

I appreciate that you consider me “pretty wise and aware,” even though I’m –gasp!!– 30, unmarried, without children. But to add some context to my situation, that has been my choice.

I could have married, more than once. But I knew in my heart that the relationship wasn’t right. And I trusted that God has someone better for me– I still do. I will be happy to marry the right man– but for love. Not fertility desperation or society’s timeline.

I am Catholic, and began my blog when I gave up dating and karaoke for Lent 2011. I wanted to hold myself accountable, and it’s been a wonderful quest. Because of it, I started this blog, and recently a column in my hometown newspaper.

I disagree that men don’t want to marry these days– my best male friend fell in love at 22 with a divorced single mother, and now has been married to her for six years, and together for 10. I was their Maid of Honor, and have become just as close with his wife. They had their first child together two years ago, and he is an incredible step-father to her 10-year-old son. Several of my other male friends also settled down at this time, between 20-25, and are still with those women now. They all also lived together–sometimes for several years, before marriage. They had pre-marital sex. Now they have marital sex, which has given them families they cherish.

In my first post, “Unrelenting Freedom for 40 Days!,” I explained my goal as a single woman:

“Suddenly, my being single is scandalous. For me it’s natural, but it seems others are starting to see it as a bad habit I should quit.

I don’t want to find a man to *complete* me, Jerry Maguire-style. I feel blessed to be unbeholden to a mortage, children, or husband! I resolved to stop judging myself on social deficits, and feeling like a negative integer. My Uno Status does not make me a -1; I’m a whole number. And if I meet another whole number? We’ll be TWO whole numbers… together. We’ll be 1+1 = happiness.

I am one, wholly me, unrelentingly ME. I’m going to stop scrambling to find this “other” person, and give it to God. If I am meant to be a mother, I’ll embrace it. But my eggs are not wasted if they pass unfertilized, and I am no less feminine if I choose to make my life without a partner or children. Children are wonderful, but not mandatory. A relationship is desireable, but not at all costs.

Not at the cost of my happiness! So for 40 days, I’m going to find out what else thrills me, besides dating.”

No, thank you, for being such a good sport about my quoting you. Congratulations, by the way, on your blog (and your Lent experience) and your new newspaper column.

I agree with you that we shouldn’t set up relationships or marriage (or anything else) as the (potentially idolatrous) be-all-and-end-all of our lives. Ultimately we can find true satisfaction only in God Himself, and presumably the people best able to be happy in marriage are the ones who are already able to be happy while single, as you apparently are. And of course some of us are not called to marriage at all.

I also agree that there are still many men interested in marriage. (In the original post, while noting that “There may be fewer of them around,” I affirmed that there are still such, and recommended them.) For one, I know that I am one.

I am glad that your erstwhile-living-in-sin friends are doing so well so far. They’re young yet; they may yet divorce, but let’s assume for purposes of argument that they never do: They’re still the exception, not the rule, relatively speaking. I didn’t say that all couples that live together before marriage will eventually divorce—they won’t, any more than all couples that don’t live together before marriage will have permanent, healthy marriages. But fornication and other sins do make bad outcomes more likely.

I might be able to point to friends of mine who have been in car accidents while not wearing a seatbelt and come out with barely a scratch, or friends who have been in an accident even while wearing a seatbelt and been maimed for life. But that wouldn’t change the fact that, all other things being equal, a seatbelt is likely to make a person safer in a crash, not less safe.

Thank you, I’m very pleased with said events! Especially because when I got the column, it wasn’t from clips from my newspaper days– but links to my blog. I have a degree in journalism, but have been out of the field for a few years. Now, I feel called to write again, and excited about where that may lead.

It’s funny, I almost deleted that post. I thought it was too personal, too much of my relationship history in it. But it is the first post that inspired someone–you– to reference my blog in their own. And looking yours over, it’s comprehensive, diverse, and impressive. I may not agree with your politics, but I respect you as a blogger. And of course, it’s free PR. ;)

I find when I write about myself, people connect the most strongly with my material. I may end up writing a post in response, referencing yours.

But using language such as “fornication” is really anachronistic in this new millennium. Sex is part of our identities now, and to treat it as something reserved only for marriage is a mistake. We should be mindful and cautious when choosing partners– and I do believe that casual sex has fundamentally damaged gender politics and the magic of dating. But for couples that are committed, exploring sexual compatibility is just as crucial as other aspects. That’s the reality for our times, and a very complicated issue to confront as a single.

I suppose not everyone likes to look at graphs or talk “in the aggregate”; if you would prefer, I can match your stories of people you know with stories of individual people I know.

I know of guys who get a live-in girlfriend and consider it a license to be a total slob, leaving it to her to clean up after them—sometimes even license to be unemployed and play video games while she works to provide for them both.

I know a lot of guys who sleep with girls but are past 25 and give no indications that they are inclined to marry.

In my circle of friends when I graduated from college, there were several couples sleeping together; at least one of those couples has since married (though an unnatural, intentionally barren marriage), but others have broken up.

I know one guy who has explicitly told me that he does not intend ever to marry—he reckons he’ll be a lot happier just sleeping around. He currently has a live-in girlfriend. Will they ever marry? It could happen. But it may not. In the meantime, he is taking from her years of her life that she can never get back.

I’ve heard about these guys who have the “housewife” girlfriends. Although I don’t personally have any female friends who have been through this. Recently I’ve read that even cooking for a man is considered too much, without a commitment. If you’ll do his laundry and cook for him– even when you’re NOT living together, where’s his motivation to make it official? They say if you want a marriage, hold off on the cooking– that’s an upgrade that comes with stepping up to be a husband, not a boyfriend.

Although I’m not much of a cook myself yet, that makes sense to me. I once had a three dates with a guy I liked– for the fourth date, I invited him over for dinner. Never called me again. Lesson learned! I was trying too hard.

Who are these guys you’re friends with? They don’t sound very respectful of women. That’s not society– I think that’s just them. The latter example, with the live-in girlfriend, is disturbing. The fact that he can be so cavalier and freely admit to you that he has no intent to marry, is upsetting. But I’m sure this woman must have seen some red flags. She’s choosing to remain, probably hoping he’ll change. I DO believe that you get what you settle for, and she’s just as accountable as he is for accepting such mediocrity. She’s probably just tired of dating, and would rather stay than deal with going back out there. It’s rough, I’m not going to lie.

Two problems with your approach (1) the earlier you marry, the greater the chance of the marriage ending in divorce. As you know, the divorce rate in this country is reaching near epidemic levels, and marrying early only exacerbates this. Thus, marrying early could actually be counterproductive, leading to divorce, messed up kids, and misery, rather than the rosy picture you paint.

(2) If you wait until marriage to have sex, you will be terrible at it and your wife will probably divorce you anyway.

Snoodickle, I agree. One of my friends married at 21 to get out of her family home, and ended up divorced six months later. Immediately her husband lost his job, stayed home to play video games all day, and ruined her credit. She paid the bills, and he cheated on her and abused her. She is now 30, single, successful, and much happier.

“Snoodickle”, I normally wouldn’t take you seriously enough to respond—at least when your second “argument” is probably joking—but since someone else is taking your first argument seriously, I’ll give it a try.

First, is that true, or is this just another one of your made-up “facts”? “the earlier you marry, the greater the chance of the marriage ending in divorce”—any chance I could get you to link to a source for that?

I assume you agree that in generations past, people both married earlier and divorced less. Why, then, do you think earlier marriage is now correlated with higher divorce rates (assuming that it is)?

With respect, I agree that “to get out of her family home” is generally a very bad reason to marry, and that a man who plays video games all day, cheats, or is abusive is a poor choice in a husband, but I disagree that that tells us anything about the merits of marrying earlier or later in itself. I reiterate my encouragement in the original post for people to choose their spouses carefully and well, looking for qualifications like godly character.

I agree that she made a poor choice. The point was that, at 21, we are much more likely to make bad choices. I am not the girl I was at 21– and what attracts me to a partner has radically changed since then. At 18 my first boyfriend was a gorgeous musician– who embodies all the stereotypes associated with that. An Atheist, even! Now, I know better. Now, I look for stability, compatible values, a strong faith, good work ethic, and loyalty.

True, it’s an isolated example. I agree that we should choose spouses with care– but your post argues for marriage at an early age. Not everyone is equipped emotionally to do that by age 25.

And I think I agree with you to some extent, and it’s possible that Snoodickle’s correlation (between early marriage and divorce) is even true, but I guess I think it’s sort of all part of the same problem—people in our culture today don’t grow up and become as responsible as they should as quickly as they should, and one manifestation of that is that they aren’t marriage-oriented and don’t tend to marry in their early twenties, and another manifestation of that is that if they do they’ll tend to be sort of childish and use poor judgment. So I reckon the solution (easier said than done, of course) is for people to grow up and be mature and responsible sooner—and that would include being family-oriented sooner, but also being sober and prudent in decision making by the time one chooses a spouse.

“I am not the girl I was at 21– and what attracts me to a partner has radically changed since then.”

Sure, and to some extent that doesn’t have to mean that you were immature or unwise at that age, but only that we’re bound to change over time—but to the extent that that’s the case, the argument applies almost equally to all ages: I shouldn’t get married at age 21 because I’ll be a different person by the time I’m 30, but I shouldn’t get married at 30 because I’ll be a different person by the time I’m 50, and so on. If we take that too far, it’s a solid argument for never marrying at all.

For whatever it’s worth, I don’t mean to make it sound as if I were talking only about the rest of the population and not including myself: I’ve been as much a part of the culture of prolonged adolescence as the next guy, and I’m not at all sure that I would have been better off marrying in my early twenties. In any case I wasn’t really grown up or mature. E.g., when I read Charles Murray’s Real Education, and he argued that our current education system produces a lot of lazy college students who don’t apply themselves, I thought, Hey, he’s talking about me!

I can only speak from experience and observation, and I also can’t totally agree that getting married younger will make for a longer happier marriage.

Getting married at ANY age, young or old, to the RIGHT person is what will make one last.

When a person is young, they usually tend to act on impulse in the hopes of living a dream that society has implanted into our minds from the moment we were born. Unfortunately these same impulses don’t always lead us to making right decisions.

Not saying no one should get married young. Some people find their match fairly quickly in life, and hey, that’s great! But for the rest, it’s best to be picky and patient and not dive into an inevitable mess for the sake of bearing children.

If women refused to fornicate and porn was outlawed, sure more men would be willing to get married..but then again, wouldn’t a lot of them just be settling for the sake of having sex? And if that’s the case, wouldn’t that lead to more unhappy and/or totally failed marriages? I also believe removing that stimulation from men can lead to other problems like an increase in rape and possibly child molestation. A lot of creeps need to get their kicks somehow, and if they can’t get it online, they will get it some place else.

And a woman does not need to convert to ANY religion to make her a better person or hopes of having a successful romantic relationship. She just has to do what is right for her and live her life as she will.

I’m not exactly saying that marrying younger leads to longer or happier marriages. I am saying that people should marry younger to minimize the risk of having few or no children, and because the young have a greater share of the physiological factors that I think God designed to be the ignition that starts a marriage, so to speak.

I am also saying that a respect for marriage, and selfless love for the other, is more likely to lead to a permanent, happy marriage, and that selfishness and disrespect for marriage (e.g., fornication and cohabitation) are more likely to lead to divorce or an unhappy marriage.

With respect, I suspect that the idea that everything depends on marrying “the RIGHT person” is part of the unrealistic “dream that society has implanted into our minds”. I agree that compatibility is important as far as it goes, and people should choose carefully—I think they should make their choice with the consciousness that they are choosing for life—but I think a proper understanding of what marriage is and isn’t, plus a healthy reliance on God’s grace, is at least equally important to making a marriage last, and making it happy.

Other than that, on the subject of whether people are mature enough when they’re young to make decisions like marriage, I guess I’d say what I just said to Amee above—no, I agree that to some extent they’re not, but that’s not inherent in being that age; it’s a problem in our current culture, and it’s part of the same problem (in a word, immaturity) that I was talking about in the first place when I said that people weren’t getting married as early as they should.

As to what you say about fornication and pornography, I’m not sure how to respond. I hate to play any kind of argumentum ad hominem card, but when I have conversations like this with women, I’m struck by how little they seem to understand how men think and how things work in a man’s sanctification or degeneration—which only makes sense, because they’re not men. First, I assure you that “creeps” do not “need” to get “kicks”, any more than an alcoholic needs another drink; they’re creeps partly because they have indulged in fornication and pornography, and if anything there would be less rape etc. if they didn’t, not more.

I also don’t think it would be fair to say that men who married under those circumstances would “just be settling for the sake of having sex”. They would be different men—better men—for not having corrupted themselves with fornication and pornography, and sexual desire is part of God’s plan, a legitimate part of why people (at least men, I can confidently say) get married. If you want men not to consider that factor, out of some abstract quest for men to make a pure or unbiased choice of whom to marry, then I guess I think that will lead to a lot more of them choosing not to marry at all—which I guess we’re both agreeing is what has in fact happened.

As for Christianity, I’m not sure I understand your position. I’m not saying that no one who isn’t Christian will have a happy relationship. I think Christianity offers at least two significant advantages over the alternatives: First, it offers moral clarity, standards of behavior simple enough that there’s any chance of following them. Second, it offers God’s grace, supernatural help in living up to those standards. Something like what I said to Amee above about cohabitation, it’s not that converting to Christianity is some silver bullet that will make everything good, or that everything will be awful without it, but that it is likely to make things better, all other things being equal.

Of course, we should love God for His own sake; ultimately He will not be used as a means to an end. So I shouldn’t suggest that people can pick Him up as a tool to be used for their particular purpose, and otherwise ignore Him. But if we choose Him, everything else will tend to fall into place as well.

Yes, God’s grace. As C. S. Lewis puts it (Mere Christianity, “Sexual Morality”), “The Christian principles are, admittedly, stricter than the others; but then we think you will get help towards obeying them which you will not get towards obeying the others.”

No doubt God’s grace is a difficult and foreign concept to anyone not already familiar with Christianity; it was to me when I was a new convert. If you would like to understand Christianity better, I think the best place to start might be to read Mere Christianity.

I know from experience that you don’t know Christianity. In a number of conversations, both by e-mail and on this blog, you do things backward: First criticize and condemn Christianity; second (if at all), try to understand what Christianity is and what it teaches. Oops!

What exactly do you mean by backwards? I learned Christianity first, and then criticized it later in life once I learned how to think critically. It’s not really that complicated to understand, you act like it’s rocket science.

For example, in that conversation I linked to above, you tried to pick a fight about Exodus, then made it clear that you hadn’t read the text your whole argument was based on, and then tried to criticize “historical critic” for supposedly having misled you about what the text said. You didn’t read the text first and argue about it second; you came to us trying to “prove” that Christianity is bad based on a text you hadn’t read.

I know Chillingworth has already given you a very long response, but if Chillingworth will indulge a little girl-talk, I’d like to answer you, too.

I agree and disagree.

My youthful errors were in the other direction: the opposite of impulsiveness. Some people find their match fairly quickly in life but also are influenced by a culture that tells them that marriage is about finding the “right” guy, or the “best” guy; and that they should wait until they are thirty so they can really see what else is out there, or live life a bit before tying themselves down, or just because there’s no hurry. (A vague, but somehow persuasive sentiment. Twenty-five seems distant to a twenty-two-year-old; but twenty-two seems recent to a twenty-five-year-old.)

What I found–but didn’t keep–in my very early twenties was my best friend. Someone who helped me become a better person. Someone who sees the world from the same place I do. Looking back on it after a few years, I can see that that fellow was the one to marry. Easy and obvious. Common sense, inherited wisdom, practical considerations, advice from people who know us, Christian understandings of love all say so. But when I was younger, I thought about marriage all wrong, so common sense had no hold on me.

But I also agree that I probably shouldn’t have married him then. I really did have to grow up (ALOT) before becoming ready or able to marry well. I’ve changed. And it’s all thanks to Christianity and what it tells me about Christian, loving, mature interaction with people (boyfriend, friends, and everyone else). Most of it probably had to do with learning to trust God—the God of Jacob, which is not really something I could have learned in any religion or lack of religion.

Christianity gave me two things: 1) an understanding of how to love other people, all other people; and, 2) a clear understanding of the point of marriage. Both are necessary for successful adult life and healthy marriage.

My grandmother tried to give me good advice when I was younger. She said that this fellow and I were clearly good friends. She said, in the end, that’s what spouses are. That’s what matters. Because marriage isn’t about sexual compatibility or whatever makes people think they’ve got to test each other out before marrying. Marriages aren’t just “successful romantic relationships.” Marriage is life as a group project (and it’s hard to pick a good partner if you don’t have a good understanding of what the project is) and an expression of commitment to someone, come what may, because that someone needs your love–a bunch of different kinds of love.

The people in our lives are real people, not means to our own ends. There aren’t that many people in our lives. We don’t have infinite chances at things. And we get older faster than we think we will. We live in communities that all benefit from our marrying, and marrying well, and marrying earlier.

I get the impression that “waiting to see what’s out there” mostly means never marrying. That’s not to say everyone should just marry her first boyfriend. But, I guess, I mean to say that the principles that lead people to good understandings of marriage are not specific to marriage. And our attitudes about marriage are not separable from our larger social fabric. Everyone keeps shopping because they don’t know what they’re supposed to be buying.

So, I shouldn’t have gotten married at twenty-two. But I’d like to see a world that give younger people a clearer and more helpful vision for what marriage is, so that more of us actually are ready to marry at twenty-two.

[…] that inspired him (Mr. Conservative, as Amee dubbed him) to write his own blog entry entitled, “People Should Mary Earlier”, where, in a very subtle way he basically explained that by the age of thirty she’s most […]

[…] My entry yesterday began when I read an entry on someone else’s blog, and has in turn led to the writing of two other entries on others’ blogs. In case they’re of interest, I offer them with no further comment: […]

Hi CHillingsowrth. Very interesting post! Seems to have unlocked an intersting debate. While I don’t agree with you (which I discussed in my comment on Emily_sixx’s blog), I am very intrigued by your points. I’m actually writing a book (and a blog) about the connection between the ways that men view God, and how these views manifest in romantic relationships. If you’re willing to chat, I’d love to here your story.

I’m happy to talk with you if you’d like, but you’ll want to contact me off site. Anyone is welcome to contact me at any time using the e-mail address given on the Contact page (linked at the top of this page).

Excellent post! This should be must-reading for all the allegedly “comprehensive” sex education classes (I’m all for comprehensive sex ed, provided they include all the facts about consequences of out-of-wedlock sex: poverty, disease, heartbreak, abortion, etc. But they usually just mean “just use condoms and you probably won’t have any consequences.”)

Marriage and family are the foundations of our society, and we have completely messed them up because of all sorts of lies (sex without consequences, feminism, etc.).

Sometimes when I think about it, it seems very strange to me that so many people are so unaware of what has happened—of how very bad the consequences of the sexual revolution, feminism, etc. have been. It makes the whole thing even more tragic, maybe.

Some time ago I was listening to an NPR interview with a self-proclaimed authority on sexual morality. She insisted that conservative religions needed to rethink their condemnation of premarital sex. Her argument, in a nutshell: studies show that the overwhelming majority of Americans have their first sexual experience prior to marriage. Therefore, if it were really true that premarital sex had serious negative consequences, we would be living in a very messed-up society.

Excellent. Young people, particularly young women, have zero clue what they are throwing away when they waste their youth on self-establishment and basically branding themselves. We are fertile for approximately twenty minutes, and wow, does middle age–then age– loom quickly when fertility is fading in the rearview.
I disagree with the comments which declare that young marriage is doomed. The whole point-which you have mentioned here–is to meet young, grow together, be part of one another’s formation to real adult actualization. When a couple is blessed to find one another young (which would happen a LOT more if we were even open to the possibility), and keeps a sort of loyalty and faithfulness in the radar, it is a stronger union than one where the pair must painfully discard pieces of themselves formed under the guidance of self-orientation.